martes, 2 de julio de 2013

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (II), "Carceri d'Invenzione" [Grabados]

Segundo post dedicado a la obra de Piranesi. Para más información sobre el artista, véase el anterior.Second post dedicated to the work of Piranese. More information about the artist in the previous one.
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The Prisons (Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons'), is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second states that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.

These in turn influenced Romanticism and Surrealism. While the Vedutisti (or "view makers") such as Canaletto and Bellotto, more often reveled in the beauty of the sunlit place, in Piranesi this vision takes on, what from our perspective could be called a Kafkaesque, Escher-like distortion, seemingly erecting fantastic labyrinthian structures, epic in volume. They are capricci, whimsical aggregates of monumental architecture and ruin.

The series was started in 1745. The first state prints were published in 1750 and consisted of 14 etchings, untitled and unnumbered, with a sketch-like look. The original prints were 16” x 21”. For the second publishing in 1761, all the etchings were reworked and numbered I–XVI (1–16). Numbers II and V were new etchings to the series. Numbers I through IX were all done in portrait format (taller than they are wide), while X to XVI were landscape (wider than they are high).

The prints in this post are taken from the website of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and belong to the second edition of 1761 published in Opere Varie. (Robison, Andrew. Early architectural fantasies: a catalog raisonné of the etchings, 1986). Watermarks in some prints in the series, 78-87 Robison, confirm that this is the fourth edition published in Opere Varie in Paris between 1800 and 1807 by Francesco and Pietro Piranesi.

XII - "Il cavalletto / El caballito / The Sawhorse"

XIII - "Il pozzo / El pozo / The Well"

"For Henri Focillon art historian whose first published work was devoted to Parinesi, this etching lover, the "play of light and shadow acquires supernatural aspects," was ahead of his time and, at the same time that art helped him develop the first Prisons. It is true that Goya had drawn their whims, but here the artist imposes an architectural model as a symbol of oppression. But what are the prisons? The article's author defines as "whims of invention". And... how are these games artifice? Focillon explains: Piranesi "place the volumes with the security of an engineer, he knows the structures of the masses with the consummate experience of a master builder (...), just take the perspective that can best surprise the viewer." And the human figures, I might add, are very small compared to the volumes. "Is it imagination?" wonder who see them. What is there are arcs to stimulate in the viewer the desire and the illusion of endless depth of a space whose boundaries know. We can see stairs and passageways we do not know where they lead, hooks, chains, wooden beams and wheels that remind us of a torture chamber, chiaroscuro concern, watchtowers, dungeons, drawbridges and doors and barred windows."

Text taken from a review by Pilar Alberdi of the book "Las cárceles de Piranesi (Prisons of Piranesi)", I didn't read it, but looks interesting, including four articles by Margarite Yourcenar, Henri Focillon, Aldous Huxley and Serguei Eisenstein. Full review (in spanish) here.

I made this animation film based on Piranesi's Carceri d'Invenzione prints as a walk through these amazing spaces.

I used camera mapping (Projection Man) and camera animation with Maxon's Cinema4D, building 6 different scenes that were merged together in a single continuous animation.

The film was made and produced by myself for Factum Arte (Madrid) who supported me in making this film and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venezia) who provided scans of their own print collection, for an exhibition about Piranesi that took place in San Giorgio Maggiore, Venezia, in 2010/2011. The exhibition was showed in Spain, Madrid and Barcelona, in 2012.

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